The company, which specializes in renovating buildings in rough-and-tumble neighbourhoods, is holding a community open house in Dartmouth on Wednesday afternoon to show the public its work.

Invited to see a 30-unit building at 7 Kennedy Dr. are members of the company’s existing tenant base, members of the Main Street Dartmouth Business Improvement Association and citizens.

The event is a first for the company, which Patrick Johnston started in 1996 by buying small buildings and fixing them up.

“We’re looking at all the different ways to bring people to neighbourhoods that they would normally not go to, just to expose it to new people,” Johnston said Monday.

“It changes their state of mind on a neighbourhood.”

He acquired the building, along with a 60-unit complex at 9 and 11 Kennedy Dr., earlier this year and began renovating all the units in May. All three buildings will be completed in the next two weeks.

Out came the fences and high hedges that were a magnet for nefarious activity. Outdoor night lighting and cameras were installed, creating a more secure setting, Johnston said.

Other changes to the buildings include new windows, updated kitchens and bathrooms, new flooring and siding, and spruced-up common areas.

On-site management and 24-hour tenant service will also be available.

“Those things attract people, and they also take away for the people that don’t want to be here for the right reason,” Johnston said.

The renovations reflect the neighbourhood’s changing nature, he said.

“When you have on-site people that care and on-site people that are making an impact and making decisions, you have change. We have scared away, if you will, probably between 30 to 40 (tenants), and a lot of those people that were in these buildings were not people that I would have in my system.”

The company employs more than 100 people, including 45 on the construction crews. All the crews worked on the buildings

simultaneously, which is one reason the work took about six months. However, there won’t be much rest for one of the crews because it will move on to nearby 237 Roleika Dr. on Tuesday.

Work on rehabilitating the fire-damaged 29-unit building will cost in excess of $1 million.

“When our work crew on 7 Kennedy finish here, they just move over there,” Johnston said.

“This is symbolic for us because with 24 Roleika, which we did last spring, and now with this one, it’s the two at either end of this neighbourhood and … now we’re just moving through the properties on the inside.”

Atlantic Living has a real estate portfolio of more than 2,000 units at a value of about $137 million, including properties in Fredericton and Saint John.